


Cauliflower

by pinkmoogle



Series: Tumblr Prompts [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cooking Lessons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 00:36:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18487678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkmoogle/pseuds/pinkmoogle
Summary: Tumblr Prompt #44: "Remind me again why we're doing this?"Healthy meals aren't necessarily easy to prepare, (or to hide, for that matter).





	Cauliflower

“Do you have anything sturdier than this, Ignis? Something  _metal_ , maybe?”

From the other side of his workstation, Ignis lifts his gaze from the half-peeled Leidan potato in his palm to the plastic masher that you’re holding up for his observation, taking but a moment to observe its messy, cauliflower-coated state before he’s craning a single eyebrow in your direction. “Is that one giving you a fuss?”

“It doesn’t  _mash_.” Clumps of white — a soggy combination of milk, butter, sour cream and cauliflower — fling down onto the table when you shake the utensil in frustration.

Ignis’s face is impassive. “You have to be patient with it.”

“Patient?” Your palm burns with the term, having been rubbed nearly raw with each downward thrust of the masher into the mixing bowl for the past ten minutes with nothing but a gooey cluster of unappetizing slop to show for it. “It isn’t durable! It’s flimsy and I can’t do anything except for—”

“Here.” Setting down the potato, Ignis bends just enough to retrieve a sealed bag of leafy spinach from the cooler next to the workstation before straightening and setting it down next to the stovetop. “Saute two handfuls with oil and butter after chopping them, if you wouldn’t mind. Add minced garlic for taste. We’ll mix it into the pasta sauce upon completion.”

You can’t help but sigh; it wasn’t often that you took to complaining when helping Ignis prepare supper. You loved it, in fact — loved the trust that he had in you when it came to following his exact instruction. On days like today, however, when the sun had depleted most, if not all of the group’s energy, your patience had a tendency to wear paper-thin…

Especially when it came to mashing boiled,  _stubborn_  cauliflower.

“Allow me.” When Ignis reaches to retrieve the utensil from your fingers, you let him take it, using your other hand to slide your mixing bowl across the table until it sits directly in front him. With a calm, collected sigh, the strategist begins to skillfully drive the masher into the clumps of cauliflower, twisting his wrist every so often without dislodging a single gelled follicle.

As he works, you pry apart the plastic of the spinach bag and cup out enough onto the cutting board before heating the single skillet on the burner and applying several teaspoons of both butter and oil. Withdrawing a knife from the block, you then get to work on the spinach in swift, calculated slices, ignoring the hums of appreciation from Gladio, Prompto and Noctis around the campfire not ten feet from where you’re working.

You chuckle quietly at their sounds, scooping up the chopped spinach before dropping them into the now-sizzling skillet. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?”

Ignis glances up at you from over the rim of his spectacles before looking past you toward the rest of the group, dedicating several moments to silent consideration before pushing out a soft chuckle of his own. “We’re doing this… because we care about him. Isn’t that always why?”

Stirring around the shrinking spinach in the skillet with a wooden spoon, you nod your head a few times before smiling, cheek turning just enough to observe the Crown Prince from over the swell of your shoulder. His hands were animated, gesturing left and right as he told a story of a face-off with a King Behemoth, oblivious to what was being prepared for him in Ignis’s makeshift kitchen.

“Don’t forget the garlic for taste,” the adviser quickly says, setting several garlic cloves down near your cutting board. “He cannot know that we’re to put  _spinach_ in his pasta sauce…”

“Hah! No. Of course not.”


End file.
